Accessibility and Disability in Gaming - Matt's Analysis

Accessibility and disability are issues that the gaming industry shares with wider society. The message that society tends to send to anyone who is not a white, cisgender, straight, white, able-bodied man with no illnesses whatsoever is that you don't belong here, that this is not a space that the belongs to you. Then we add in capitalism, which espouses that if you can't work a nine to five job then you're essentially a drain on society and you're worthless. Sometimes you can feel like a dead weight on society. It's terrible for your self-esteem. The gaming industry is not exempt. This article is about the idea of whether games give you a sense that you belong.

Gaming the System is a feminist gaming podcast where 4 intersectional feminists examine gaming through a feminist lens. This article is a collation of Matt’s perspective on accessibility and disability. If you want to hear more, you can check out the full episode on the links below. Welcome to Gaming the System!

Disability is not always represented in any healthy ways, like people with with scars and deformities. They are still often used as a marker that they are evil and something is wrong with them .Caroline and I both talk about how we have depression and anxiety. We ask ourselves if we feel like gaming is a space where you can exist as a whole. Because illnesses are a part of you, they're not something that is just bolted on and that you should use an enemy. They're just part of your experience of life.

One thing I'm finding increasingly positive about this space that we've created with Gaming the System and something I’m trying to do in my life is try to be my one authentic self everywhere I go. This seems to be something that your gaming that you don't have to be one person in the real world and be another person in gaming. In their working life, that's what so many people do. They just change who they are depending on the situation they’re in, so that's what working pressures them to do.

So that's what I hope that gaming should offer to everyone this this leads on quite well into thinking how so illness and disability make up parts of you whoever you might be there part of your authentic self hard your authentic experience and a lot of the time say with a nine to five job you're expected to cut off that part of yourself and fight against it so I can't work a normal nine to five job annoyed because of my own sis so I work a big work as a delivery driver and I make plenty of money and is still of fun and it completely accounts from my own sis so that means that I can be my offending self go straight from just lying in bed to going out working and I'll still meet and that's fine.

There's a lot of stigma that's attached to just existing as you are, so if you go to work and say I can't work today because I'm having a terrible depression then the overall message I've always felt is that you're worthless and that why would the company hire you because of this?

You’re weak and you’re less powerful because of this and thinking about when this applies to games you say I want to play this game on easy, for example. This is a massive thing, a massive message that people who play games on easy are losers and we are pathetic. But it just means you can have a lot more fun than some people. it's just about your experience, by your authentic experience. People will tell you your authenticity is wrong anywhere you, but you can say ,well authentically, I'm playing on easy and I enjoy it so much more so screw you!

Jem explained that she struggles with motion sickness and just reminds me of what the stigma of saying you are disabled and not able bodied. It seems it always defined as a very black and white, but the truth is everyone could become like disabled at any point. Like tomorrow you could be hit by a car and then all the sudden you can't use your hands.

Also, as you age, you're more likely to acquire ad disability. Essentially, your body is degenerating, so you're more likely to pick up hearing loss, sight, lose mobility. So as you age, you're gradually pushed out of things that non-disabled people are able to do much more easily.

It’s a very low level thing but I've been having real trouble with my forearms recently. It's a posture and nerve issue. As you sit slumped, it stretches all the nerves that go through into the arms and it gives you really bad bad pain. It's the light repetitive emotions you do.I had to change the setting on Assassin's Creed Valhalla because a button that you press constantly is the right analogue stick to your eagle vision and it's just like what idiot made you press this constantly? It’s a button that fights back and so I had changed that option.

We think about Esports that any game could be played competitively and it could be fantastic. People watch Scrabble world champions on YouTube, so people will watch anything, so I'm certain that with accessibility there is a way if you care. If the people making games care to find out, then they will find a way.

The patriarchy is abominable to our health because patriarchy says that you need to be strong and masculine. It’s something that's having a terrible impact in America, because it’s saying that if you're strong and manly then you don't need to take Covid precautions, because you’re such a strong awesome man.

The barriers against disabled people getting into the workplace are quite large, so perhaps a lot of factors just trying to take advantage of to tap the talent that is waiting and ready to come into the workplace. Obviously there's a huge variety of jobs within the gaming industry. It’s not just making games. Designing games is also thinking about ergonomics, maybe designing controllers or designing gaming chairs. Game development studios need to appreciate that disabled people bring in perspectives and make it better for everybody as a whole.

There are parallels in the situation of disabled people and people who become pregnant. Pregnant women are viewed as a liability, disabled people are also seen as a liability because the employers think they're just a drain on the resources or something that you're doing them a favour. They don’t stop to consider what you'll bring, even though they are a source of brilliance, the same sort of brilliance that they think only comes from cisgender straight white able bodied men. That brilliance is what you want, so you should be wanting to welcome them in.

I think the more people that you can get involved with who have various disabilities, then more businesses can see that actually they can accommodate them and they get so much more back from it. The idea that disabled people are broken and that they’re something to be accommodated is so profound and horrifying.

An example in a non-work setting is a comedian named Jess Thom. She's a comedian who uses a wheelchair and she's got tourettes. She spoke about one time when she went to a play and because she had tourettes she was just wheeled out and put in an audio tech room and watched it on screen. I can't imagine that, someone seeing you as just something to be wheeled away, something to be ashamed of.

So it seems that it is not only about accommodating diverse disabilities. It is about building a place where not only is everyone welcome, but everyone is comfortable. A place where you make reasonable adjustments. Just remember that if you open yourself up to 100% of the people who could work in your field, then you can take the best so that no matter what stripe they may be. Or you can say you’re only gonna go with the able bodied people who look like you and you’re going to end up with a large percentage of the mediocre people, just because they look like you.

If you want to hear more on this topic, you can check out the full episode on the links below. Welcome to Gaming the System!